The Killing Game Episode Addition
by suej
Summary: Chakotay and the Captain face the aftermath of the Hirogen occupation.


The Killing Game - Episode Addition  
  
Written - 6/02 Summary - Chakotay and the Captain face the aftermath of the Hirogen occupation. Rating - G  
  
They were still mopping up from 'The Game', if it could really be called that. After watching her adversary fall to his death, Captain Kathryn Janeway had made her way directly to the bridge. It had actually been much easier than she anticipated, the confusion of the last few minutes apparently having the result that the remaining Hirogen were scattered in small groups all over the ship. Along the way she had gathered up several crewmembers and it had luckily taken them very little time to liberate the bridge.  
  
Harry was still there when they arrived. After disabling the holo-emitters throughout the ship he had feigned ignorance of what was happening to the skeleton crew of Hirogen remaining with him on the bridge. Unfortunately, they realized very quickly that he was in fact responsible for what had happened. They were about to make him pay for his mistake when the Captain and her team arrived. Several minutes of intense phaser fire followed and soon the Voyager team had subdued the outnumbered Hirogen and retaken the bridge. Harry was extremely relieved to see Janeway and the other crewmembers still alive, and was even more relieved at their impeccable timing.  
  
The remainder of the senior staff had been together when the emitters went down. Chakotay took charge quickly and dispersed them in smaller groups around the ship to assess the situation and report back. All of them had taken several crewmembers with them and they were steadily forcing the last remnants of the Hirogen to non-essential areas of the ship. Many of the invaders had already retreated to their own vessels, but there were still several small skirmishes breaking out in sections of the ship where smaller parties of Hirogen had been inadvertently trapped away from the rest.  
  
Chakotay eventually made his way to engineering with B'Elanna. She was more than happy to have her holographic pregnancy a thing of the past, silently wondering if she were ever to really have a child, if she would have the patience to survive the experience. "B'Elanna, do we have communications?" Chakotay questioned.  
  
B'Elanna's hands rapidly ran over the control panel on one of the engineering consoles. "Apparently. Not the entire ship, but the important areas anyway. I can reach the bridge and sickbay with no problem."  
  
As many of the crew were still without comm badges, Chakotay was pleased that at least the command centers of the ship could remain in communication. "Commander Chakotay to the bridge. Anyone up there?"  
  
There was a moment of hesitation and then B'Elanna and Chakotay heard Harry reply. "Ensign Kim here Commander, it's good to hear your voice."  
  
"Same here Harry. Can I assume that you are in control of the bridge?"  
  
The Captain, who was sitting at the conn checking on the status of the navigation and maneuvering controls, turned to face her chief of operations with a slight smile on her face at the conversation she was overhearing. "Actually Sir, Captain Janeway is here as well."  
  
"Captain?"  
  
"Report Commander!" was her terse response to his inquiry.  
  
If he hadn't known her better, he would have been somewhat indignant that after being out of contact for so long, her first words to him were a stern order. But he realized from her tone of voice that she was teasing just a little, the result of his assumption that Harry was in charge. But he also knew to respond to her request. The tone may have implied some humor, but the words were all business. "B'Elanna and I are in engineering with a small team. We have the area secured. Tuvok and Seven are attempting to make it to astrometrics, and Neelix, Tom and the Doctor are on their way to sickbay."  
  
She was instantly relieved by his words. It meant all her senior staff was still alive. "Very good. Our first priorities are to secure as much of the ship as possible and find our people. I want an accounting of everyone as soon as possible, understood?"  
  
He could tell that she was extremely concerned for the fate of the crew. They both knew there must have been casualties, probably more than a few, but they had no idea how many, and while in reality neither of them was anxious to know, it was a task that had to be done. "Aye Captain. I'll contact you again soon."  
  
Before he could sign off, she said, "And Commander.it is good to hear from you. Janeway out."  
  
As she signed off, Chakotay could plainly hear in her tone that there was a smile on her face.  
  
=/\=  
  
The next few of hours went fairly well. The last of the Hirogen were rounded up and confined to the brig, or escaped back to the relative safety of their ships. And even though they were still in a position to cause significant trouble for Voyager and her crew, the fight seemed to have gone out of all of them for the time being. Janeway had no doubt they were reassessing their situation with the most powerful of those left vying for leadership.  
  
=/\=  
  
After assisting as much as he could in engineering and verifying that everything was under control, a quick review of the reports from the other teams indicated that the way to the bridge was clear and Chakotay finally managed to make his way there. Upon entering, he saw several crewmembers manning the various stations or under consoles making repairs, one of them Harry Kim. Captain Janeway however, was nowhere to be seen. Walking over to the ops station, Chakotay addressed the young officer. "Harry?"  
  
Harry sat up so fast he bumped his head on the bottom of his station. Chakotay knelt down beside him, "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you, are you alright?"  
  
Rubbing his head as he sat up, Harry answered, "Yeah, I'm fine. No worse for the wear." The Captain had sent him to sickbay earlier and Tom had fixed him up from the abuse the Hirogen had inflicted. While there were no serious injuries, he had been pretty battered and bruised. "What can I do for you?"  
  
"Where's the Captain?"  
  
Harry looked at his hands when he replied. "She's in her ready room." There was a brief hesitation before he completed his thought, "Been there since before I went to sickbay."  
  
Chakotay noticed a note of apprehension in the junior officers' tone and called him on it, "Is there something wrong Harry?"  
  
"Well.it's just that."  
  
"Come on Ensign, I haven't got all day."  
  
Harry lifted his gaze and looked directly at Voyager's first officer. "Sir, she was hurt at some point during the fighting. Shot in the leg. She sent all of the rest of us to sickbay for treatment, but she hasn't gone herself. She's been working alone in her ready room and.quite honestly, I'm worried about her."  
  
Kathryn Janeway was known for having a touch of martyrdom in her blood. She was also well known for ignoring her own physical condition to a fault. Apparently she was doing so now. "I'll take care of it. And I'll try to get you relieved soon. You've earned a rest." he said as he patted the young man on the shoulder and then turned and walked with earnest to the ready room door.  
  
=/\=  
  
"Come in."  
  
He heard her response to the chime, and as he walked through the door he thought to himself that it had sounded rather subdued for her. When he entered he noticed that the Hirogen had redecorated her space quite significantly. He wasn't sure he would have been able to sit and work in here as efficiently as she seemed to be with all the trophies hanging from the walls. Frankly it gave him the creeps.  
  
"Chakotay, it's good to see you alive and well!"  
  
She had said it cheerfully enough, but when he turned to finally look at her instead of the décor, he was able to see through to the thinly disguised exhaustion in her eyes. He also noticed that she was by no means seated straight in her chair. She sat behind her desk, leaning heavily to one side, the array of PADDs and her open computer terminal indicating that she had been there for some time looking over the data being gathered by the repair and search teams. Chakotay recognized one of the activated PADDs near the front of her desk as the casualty report.  
  
"Same here, although I've been told you haven't been to sickbay yet, and it was your order to have everyone checked out for adverse effects of the neuro-transceivers, remember." he said it the way he meant it, a statement, not a question.  
  
"I'll get there, there was just so much to do here first, and Tom and the Doctor have had their hands full down there for some time anyway. Besides, our Hirogen friends are still out there and I'm not convinced we could defend ourselves against them just yet if they chose to attack again."  
  
She certainly wasn't going to make this easy. He really didn't know how badly she was hurt, but he could tell by looking at her that she wasn't going to be able to keep this up for long. It was only her own stubborn refusal to allow herself to be human that was keeping her relatively upright in the chair and they both knew it. And since subtle wasn't going to work, he went for direct, knowing he was probably one of only a few people in the universe who could do this to Kathryn Janeway and live to tell about it. He squared his shoulders and looked her straight in the eye, "Well Captain, I've heard from a reliable source that you were injured before we re-took the ship. That was hours ago. And by your own admission you have not been to sickbay. It is also my professional opinion that you need rest. None of us will benefit from you being dead on your feet. We need you at peak efficiency. So I hereby relieve you for at least the next six hours. I'll contact you if anything happens with the Hirogen."  
  
She was speechless as she regarded him with a decidedly shocked expression, her eyes wide.  
  
"So, are you going to take the advice of your first officer or do I contact the Doctor?"  
  
That did it. She'd been threatened enough in the last hours to last a lifetime and she wasn't going to take it from a friend. She put both hands flat on the top of her desk with a definitive slap and tried to raise herself out of her chair. It was a movement that she had accomplished hundreds of times before when she wanted to demonstrate her authority, but in this case her body failed her. She managed to stand, but not fully. Her leg had stiffened up during her period of immobility and quite frankly it hurt like hell. As much as she tried to hide it, she couldn't prevent the gasp that slid between her clenched teeth and through her lips.  
  
Chakotay watched her carefully as she began to stand. And from where he was he could now see the evidence of the injury Harry had mentioned. She had been shot in her left thigh. He caught a glimpse of a small opening in the material of her black trousers which suggested she had been shot by one of the WWII projectile weapons. But what concerned him the most was that the material was also discolored and damp with blood as far as he could see down her leg. His reaction was instinctive and he was around her desk trying to help her in seconds. "Kathryn, you're bleeding!"  
  
"It's alright Chakotay, it's just a scratch." But for the first time since she had been shot, she actually looked at her own injury and realized she just might be wrong.  
  
"It is not, now let me help you." he said as he turned her around, helped her to a seated position on the top of her desk. As she leaned back, bracing herself with her hands on the top of the desk, he gently lifted her leg with his hands so he could get a better look. To his surprise she said nothing further for the moment and he took the opportunity to examine her leg more closely ignoring the expressions of discomfort that inadvertently escaped her pursed lips. "You took that bullet straight on Kathryn. You need to have this treated." And raising his gaze back to hers, he finished, "What were you thinking?"  
  
Her shoulders slumped and she frowned slightly when she responded, defeated and looking purposefully away from him. "I guess I wasn't." she said softly.  
  
Something was wrong, he could tell, something more than just being injured. He ducked his head slightly so he could meet her eyes. "What is it? Tell me."  
  
Normally she would have distracted him with some humorous anecdote or changed the subject altogether, but what she saw in his expression and heard in his tone of voice told her of his concern and that she could trust him with how she really felt. "I guess I've been trying to immerse myself in the business of getting everything back under control so I wouldn't have to face the reality of what's happened. We're still in danger Chakotay, and I can't afford to let my guard down now, not for a minute. The ship is a disaster and the Hirogen are still out there. What's worse is that we've lost people, good people. For the first time since I took command of this ship, I'm afraid I won't be able to get us out of this one."  
  
This experience must really have affected her for the mighty Captain Janeway to be admitting weakness in any way, even to him. But he wasn't all that worried. He knew that most of the way she felt had to do with her physical condition, and the rest was due to living through an experience that would rattle the best of starship captains. As a matter of fact, he was feeling the effects himself. None of them were immune to the death and destruction they had witnessed, and many of them were starting to remember fragments of their experiences while under Hirogen mind control. It was unsettling to say the least. "Look, you've been through a lot, and you along with Harry, Seven and the Doctor carried the brunt of getting us out from under the control of the Hirogen. You have every right to feel a little overwhelmed. But let's deal with the contributing factors before you decide you can't handle this. Sickbay first, then rest, and see how you feel then. I have faith in you Kathryn, and so does the rest of this crew."  
  
The smile that followed his speech was her undoing, her eyes suddenly becoming watery. She smiled warmly in return, "Maybe you're right."  
  
"Maybe?" His response and the look on his face broke the tension, and small chuckles escaped both of them. Kathryn leaned forward, and in a gesture of need, friendship and trust, rested her forehead against his chest. He leaned toward her and placed his right hand on the back of her head to offer some comfort. "Okay, let's get you out of here. The sooner you get treated and rested, the sooner I can hand you back this mess."  
  
"Thanks a lot!" She looked up at him with a smirk that immediately changed to a grimace as he took the opportunity to lift her off the desk, supporting her so as to place minimal weight on her injured leg. He could have easily carried her, but that would send a message that neither one of them would have been comfortable with. Their arms slipped easily around each other's waists and they began to move through the ready room to the bridge.  
  
As the doors slid open and they approached the stairs, Chakotay shifted slightly to his left, "Kathryn, lean on me." he said in all innocence, but the deeper meaning wasn't lost on either one of them.  
  
"For as long as you'll let me Commander." she thought but did not say.  
  
And as her thought trailed off into the activity on the bridge as they headed for the turbolift, they both knew they would get out of this as they had so many crises before, and they would do it together, with a friendship deeper than either of them could truly understand, and that neither would willingly abandon.  
  
THE END 


End file.
